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Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Cameroon:Biya's Hollow Hopes

                By   AYAH Paul ABINE*
Ayah Paul Abine
 Mr. President has told the Camerounese youth that 225,000 jobs were created in 2013 as against his projections of 200.000. And he has projected more than 250.000 jobs for the current year (Read more here: President Paul Biya promises creation of over 250,000 jobs this year to check rising unemployment ! )
     Mr. President has since concluded by tapping himself on the back.
  This sounds more like a gloss on respectability. In the first place,Mr. President glossed over his qualification on December 31, 2012, that those jobs would be created in the "formal sector". His departure from that qualification now does create room for us to infer that some 225.000 more youth joined the bendskins (commercial cyclists) lawless occupation in 2013. But is not it of green memory that those new "recruits" did in the sweltering sun carry to the Unity Palace placards engraved with "Viva el Presidente!" even with threadbare, dog-eared degrees of Metusalah's Age obtained from the University of Village in their pockets? So, consistent with Mr. President's
generalities.
    Nor did Mr. President tell the world what magic wand he used to create 225.000 jobs as against 200.000 in the "formal sector" since his projections were in function of a growth rate of 6.1%; whereas, as he
said in his end-of-year speech just over a month back, the said growth rate in actual fact fell from 6.1% to 4.8%. Therefore were his projections as baseless as usual?
     Again, if Mr. President projected 200.000 jobs against a growth rate of 6.1%; and indications are that the rate for 2014 would be 5%, what is the logic in expecting the creation of over 250.000 in the latter
case? More bendskin; more mobile electoral frauds; more griots?
    It seems Mr. President's hopes are not more than a laughing matter! If money there was for 60.000 new jobs, how does Mr. President explain that civil servants from the Higher Teachers' College have worked for three years without salaries? Who were the new "recruits" when those who graduated from GTTCs have not been integrated for upwards of four years now? What about the unfortunate ones of the 25.000 who are still to receive their first salaries since 2011? ... You wants more questionsno be so? Mof me there!
    Just listen to Mr. President: "nous aurons besoin de milliers de bons ouvriers"! Also "des artisans (such as) des moto-taxis"! Employment in the "formal sector" for Mr. President therefore means  labourers armed with pickaxes, cutlasses, spades, and what have you, labouring in "grands projets", roads, airports hospitals, classrooms ... And while the commoners will be so labouring for under 30.000 francs each per
month as salaries, the privileged few will be amassing wealth from illegal logging, extortion, embezzlement and ... world without end! A world of disparities Mr. President's Cameroun is indeed!
     It is difficult to bring one's mind to Mr. President's facetious preoccupation with moral decadence in the management of public affairs. Is not it this same preacher who has for 18 years stoically stood in the way of the application of Section 66 of the Constitution?
    Is Operation Epervier anything more than a meandering bullet; and Mr. President alone calls the shots? What about his brain child, ELECAM, which is a huge fraud, at least in the rural areas? And does Mr.
President not get elected by ELECAM's mobile electoral frauds, comprising essentially the very youth he is addressing? ... Sheep do not give birth to snakes, you know; nay cows to crocodiles! Introspection is indispensable, Sir!
    At one point, one got the impression that Mr. President was addressing the youth wing of his party, the CPDM. What for heaven sake are the National Youth Council and the Civic Service agency for Participation in Development? Is Mr. President so estranged from the realities of his country that he is unaware that his lieutenants on the field exclude the children of "opposants" from those bodies even as we vaunt that ours is an advanced democracy? And what even then is the impact of these two white elephants aside from using the inmates for fraudulent electoral maneuvres and for subservience to the fallacy christened "appel du peuple"? Too tricky, isn't it?
   "Cinquantenaire de la Reunification"! That could well be a CEMAC business! But a real non event to Southern Cameroonians! Mark you; God’s time is the best! The Jews were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years!
When God's time came, even seas parted before the face of liberation. No knife, no arrow; not even a baton! Dialogue is a stitch that saves nine!

* Ayah Paul Abine ,a career magistrate of exceptional class ,is currently the Secretary-General of the People's Action Party(PAP) ,an opposition party in Cameroon.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Sheep do not give birth 2 a snake... hahaha that says is all ; you speak for a lot of people .. keep talking god bless you

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